NEW: The growing strain on Ontario's health-care system -- frequent emergency room closures, lengthy wait times and severe staffing shortages -- amounts to a 'crisis,' a high-ranking health-care executive in the province says
The mounting strain on Ontario's health-care system constitutes a real "crisis," a high-ranking health-care executive in the province said Wednesday, even as the Ford government sought to downplay the severity of the situation.
Staff shortages have been reported at hospitals across the province over the last few months, resulting in the temporary closure of emergency rooms and intensive care units operating at or dangerously close to capacity. But for all patients admitted to hospital from emergency rooms, just 24 per cent were admitted within a target time of eight hours. Those people — many of the sickest patients— spent an average of 20.1 hours in the emergency room.
He said emergency health-care leaders from across the province agreed on a call Wednesday that “it's a very serious situation where they're not able to do the jobs in the way that they want to because of these long waits.” In an interview Wednesday, UHN President and CEO Kevin Smith acknowledged that Toronto General currently has “more vacancies than we normally would” though exact figures were not available.meaning that the three intensive care units at the hospital are at or near capacity and are triaging patients.
“It’s understandable — these are very challenging times — and working as long and as hard as these folks have been working, they are very, very challenged and their resilience is really at a low point.”
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